An uplifting, useful, no-nonsense game plan for dealing with life’s obstacles.
A guide offers a blueprint for how to face difficulties and make bigger, bolder decisions.
Adversities, life coach Andres points out at the beginning of his book, come in all shapes and sizes, often arrive at the worst times, and seldom appear alone. When people don’t respond productively to these hardships, it’s not only their careers and relationships that can suffer, but also their own inner peace. To prevent this, the author, a self-described “well-being activist,” has developed during his years of coaching clients a model of what he calls “authentic resilience.” He refers to this by the acronym “REAL,” with the letters standing for reality, energy, authenticity, and love. Andres describes the journey he took to becoming a wellness coach—attending Jesuit Marquette University in Wisconsin, living in Japan, coming out as gay, and working in human resources in New York City for over 20 years. He then elaborates on the elements of his REAL model, going into the details of social elements and brain chemistry and citing experts, from behaviorists to neuroscientists, in order to flesh out his core concept of authenticity, which he describes as more of a process than an individual trait. Throughout his account, Andres is an upbeat, enthusiastic proponent of acquainting his readers with “the Reality Curve,” the spectrum on which they can place their own responses to the hard knocks they encounter. In clear prose that consistently respects the audience’s intelligence, the author urges his readers to be “optimistic, open, and accepting” in handling setbacks—don’t run from them and don’t deceive yourself about them, but rather learn from them and let them change you for the better. It’s easy to see how applicable most of this advice would be in the business world, but readers will find it even more valuable for coping with everyday life.
An uplifting, useful, no-nonsense game plan for dealing with life’s obstacles.Pub Date: May 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781544541242
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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